


Mug Life

by whateverrrrwhatever



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Barista Stiles Stilinski, First Kiss, First Meetings, Fluff, Inexcusable puns, M/M, Meet-Cute, Romantic Comedy, Scatological humor, Semi-autobiographical, lots of swearing, this is the disgusting coffee shop AU no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:53:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23571139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whateverrrrwhatever/pseuds/whateverrrrwhatever
Summary: Stiles hates the morning shift with the passion of a thousand fiery suns. The hot guy in the leather jacket with the boring coffee order might make him change his mind.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 40
Kudos: 448





	Mug Life

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [dottie_wan_kenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi) and [bewarethesmirk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewarethesmirk) for their amazing and herculean betaing efforts!
> 
> I swore I'd never write a coffee shop AU because I spent many years working in coffee shops and know exactly how disgusting they are. And now, this: a coffee shop AU that delights in how disgusting working in a coffee shop is, thanks to [Emony](https://twitter.com/emony). You've been warned.
> 
> I wrote this because all I want right now is fluffy escapism and I think some of you might want that, too.

Isaac gets accepted to some month-long biology field research program and Stiles is happy for him, he really is -- that kid needs all the breaks he can get, and this seems like a great opportunity. He’d talked about applying in this really reluctant, self-deprecating way that Stiles had felt compelled to cajole out of him.

“I probably won’t get it.” Isaac had shrugged, rinsing the soy pitcher. “It’s competitive. There are a lot of strong candidates in the department right now.”

“You don’t know if you don’t try,” Stiles had responded sagely. “Whipped cream shots?”

“Sure,” Isaac had said and grabbed two of the 24 ounce monster size to-go cups.

So, Isaac gets the internship, or fellowship, or whatever-the-fuck-ship, and heads off to the Beacon Hills Preserve to live in a tent and shit in a hole and collect owl pellets or something. Stiles wasn’t exactly paying attention when Isaac was telling him about it -- he’d been concentrating on deep cleaning the ice machine, trying to get rid of all the disgusting pink slime mold without cutting the shit out of his hand -- but he’s certainly paying attention when their manager tells him he’ll be moving to the morning shift while Isaac’s gone.

“What? No. No, no, no--” Stiles protests. He’d been on the morning shift when he’d first started at the store. It hadn’t gone well -- thus, his standing, two-year assignment to the closing shift.

“Sorry, Bilinski,” Finstock shrugged. “Them’s the breaks, kid. Buck up. Eat your veggies. Take your vitamins. Go to bed at a decent hour.” He clapped Stiles on the shoulder. “See you Monday at 5 a.m. sharp.”

————

Stiles is not at the store at 5 a.m. sharp. He misses the first bus, the only one that would have had him arriving remotely on time, and jogs a quarter mile to catch the next-best option. There’s almost no one else riding -- just a hunched old woman on her way to Chinatown with a foldable shopping cart, and a dude in a security guard’s uniform, slumped in the back with his baseball cap pulled over his face -- which is a relief because the bus hardly stops at all, just zooms through the pre-dawn light a little fast for the narrow downtown streets.

Stiles looks out the fogged window with bleary eyes, cheek resting on his fist, and feels like he’s in a submarine in the fucking Mariana Trench for how strange and dark everything looks, cars nothing more than headlights and people nothing more than shadows moving along the sidewalks. The bus rolls to a stop at a red light next to the park and Stiles can make out the silhouettes of at least a dozen people dreamily changing tai chi poses together in the dark.

The bus drops him six blocks from the store, and he high-tails it past dark storefronts and disquietingly empty sidewalks to skid to a halt in front of the locked doors at 5:18. Greenberg waves and lets him in.

“Stilinski,” Boyd says, popping up from where he’s stocking the pastry case. “You’re late.”

“I know, sorry, sorry,” Stiles says, dumping his bag in the back room and tying his apron haphazardly. “The bus--”

“You won’t be late tomorrow,” Boyd interrupts, fixing Stiles with a calm, cool stare.

“I… won’t be late tomorrow,” Stiles agrees readily, and goes to wash his hands.

————

Stiles hates the morning shift. Beyond the usual annoyances of his job -- shitty customers, shitty wages, and on occasion, actual shit -- he hates waking up exhausted in the dark early morning hours. He hates rushing to make the unreliable bus, which seems to come anywhere from ten minutes ahead of schedule to twenty minutes behind on any given day -- it doesn’t make any sense at all, since the bus is always nearly empty, but he can’t figure out the science behind it and at this point, he’s too exhausted to try. He hates the hours between open and seven o’clock, when they’re gearing up for the rush, but there isn’t really that much to do because the closers took care of everything. He hates having to take his lunch super early or super late, because it’s all hands on deck between 7:00 and 10:00, and he hates that he’s too queasy to eat breakfast in the first half his shift and starving in the second. He fucking hates the hour between 8:00 and 9:00, when the sun comes through the store’s floor-to-ceiling glass windows in the perfect position to blind anyone standing behind the register and bar, and he smiles at all his customers, makes change and small talk, without being able to see anyone’s goddamned face.

He loathes working with Greenberg, who can’t mark a cup correctly to save his fucking life. Stiles has to remake at least a quarter of the drinks in line on the bar. At least he isn’t bored, he guesses, squinting at a backlit woman standing at the pickup counter, holding a large latte and asking for a small latte. He fixes an accommodating customer service smile on his face, and steams more fucking oat milk.

He does like: working with Boyd, the morning rush and its deluge of customers that leaves no room to think about anything except the next order, clocking out with his whole day ahead of him, and the tamale lady that sets up shop during the Friday farmer’s market on the other side of the block. He likes working behind the bar just after opening, when the city outside is cloaked in cold predawn darkness, and the store feels like a beacon, the lone ship on an empty sea. Sometimes, he gets the short shift, and skips out of the store at 10 a.m., buys himself some sunflowers and scarfs down a little red-checked paper boat of breakfast burritos smothered in homemade salsa that makes his eyes water, then hops on the train back to his apartment, headphones blasting Snoop or Something Corporate, depending on his mood.

The Friday short shift is pretty good.

————

He also likes: daily visits from small dark roast, no room.

Small dark roast, no room has bright green eyes and dark hair that always looks like he just came from the barber, and short, groomed facial hair that’s somewhere between stubble and a beard, and so perfect that Stiles is at least as jealous as he is attracted to it. He’s got cheekbones and a jawline that leave Stiles lightheaded, and one of those dour expressions that makes Stiles want to give him a big fucking hug or at least tell him a stupid joke. Probably something with a good coffee pun. Customers love those.

He comes in every morning, some time after the folks who stop by to wake and warm up on their way from the shelter to wherever they spend their days, and the morning commuter rush. He orders the same thing every day -- the most joyless, efficient, bitter drink on the menu -- and heads out of the store toward the train. No sugar, Stiles notes one morning, watching him walk away in jeans that, disappointingly, aren’t quite tight enough for Stiles to really see what’s underneath, and not even a drop of cream.

Small dark roast, no room, is unfailingly polite, consistent, cordial, and tips incredibly well for his coffee order.

Stiles is in love.

“Hi,” Stiles says to him halfway through his Friday short shift, wiggling his fingers in what he knows to be a creepy, childish wave, but he can’t stop himself. Small dark roast, no room raises an eyebrow -- in acknowledgement? In incredulity? Stiles really can’t be sure -- and makes for the door.

————  
  


A week and a half into his morning shift, Stiles asks small dark roast, no room for his real name.

“Hey small dark roast,” he says over the whine of the grinder, aiming for casual and landing somewhere adjacent to incredibly awkward. “What’s your name?”

Small dark roast, no room stops digging in his pocket for his wallet and looks around, eyes finally landing on Stiles. “Who? Me?”

“Yes, you.” Stiles nods impatiently. This might have been a mistake. Small dark roast, no room is giving him a blank look, almost like he’s offended. “Small dark roast, no room. What’s your name?”

“It’s Derek,” he says. Stiles waits a long moment for something, anything more. He gets nothing, except small dark roast’s - Derek’s - expressionless stare.

“Nice to meet you, Derek.” Stiles gives him his best smile -- broad, friendly, just flirtatious enough to be intriguing.

Derek just nods, and heads for the door.

“Wow. Better luck next time,” Greenberg says, scooping coffee into the brewer basket, spilling grounds everywhere. The batch is fucked -- it’s gonna be so full of grounds every poor sucker ordering batch brew over the next hour’s going to have to chew it instead of drink it.

“Shut the fuck up,” Stiles snaps and wipes down the steam wand with more force than necessary.

————

He’s still pissed off on Thursday -- not only is Greenberg a passive aggressive asshole, he also showed up late for the third time this week, and now Stiles can’t take his lunch until 10:00 at the earliest. Stiles is hangry and thirsty, his feet hurt, and he knows there’s a batch of green chilaquiles in the back room from the cooks at the restaurant two doors down that’s just waiting for him.

Plus, Greenberg is still fucking marking cups wrong. He’s in fine form today, and even manages to screw up orders from their friendliest regulars, the people who bring cookies and twenties for the tip jar at Christmastime.

“Sorry, Watson,” Stiles apologizes. “Let me remake that for you.” He’s lost track of the number of free drinks and coupons he’s had to hand out; he hasn’t had a break, and he’s deep in the weeds, cups queued up past the second espresso machine, snaking around the syrup tower.

“Make sure to get names,” he reminds Greenberg with a manically polite grin. At this point, he’s given up on verisimilitude. He knows he’s smiling with his teeth, and not with his eyes. Technically, it could be called a grimace. “Don’t forget to ask about the whipped cream.”

Greenberg gives him a blank-eyed bovine nod in response. Stiles wants to strangle him with the scanner cord.

After three more incorrect cups and one irate customer, Stiles snaps at him. “Greenberg. Come on. You have to make sure you mark the cups right. You’re killing me, man.”

“Maybe you’re reading them wrong,” Greenberg suggests helpfully. “I’m just writing what they tell me.”

“Excuse me?” a woman calls from the end of the bar. She’s wearing airpods and an impatient expression. “I ordered a vanilla soy latte, not nonfat. I’m lactose intolerant.”

Stiles turns, smiling down the bar, sun in his eyes. “I’m so sorry! I’ll fix that for you right now.” He ducks down and grabs the soy from the reach-in, turning to glare at Greenberg. “I hope you burn in hell,” he hisses through gritted teeth.

“I don’t know what to tell you.” Greenberg shrugs.

“If tips are shit this week, I’m telling everyone who to fucking blame,” Stiles seethes as he pops the soy pitcher on the steam wand, pulls fresh shots, and considers abandoning the effort in favor of a full-body tackle. If he angles it right, he could probably take Greenberg down without cracking his skull on any of the steel countertops. Not that it would be a great loss, but they’d be down a body for this complete shitshow of a morning, and Stiles isn’t sure he’d survive it.

“Stilinski.” Boyd claps a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I think it’s time for you to take a little breather. How about a trash run?”

To be honest, he’d almost rather stay on bar and smile through Greenberg fucking everything up, but he knows better than to argue with Boyd. He ducks into the back room and tries to make the best of a bad deal, popping his headphones in and shoving a leftover madeline in his mouth as he yanks his apron over his head.

Both of the giant wheeled garbage cans are full to overflowing with old coffee grounds and empty milk jugs, sloshing bags pulled from the condiment bar, where people think it’s okay to pour their coffee in the trash to make room for more tepid half-and-half, and whatever weird shit ends up in the bathroom trash. Stiles tries not to look too closely. He hadn’t really understood the meaning of “ignorance is bliss” until he’d started working here.

“Behind,” he calls, slipping past the bar and squeezing between Greenberg and the handwashing sink. He’s tempted to run him down, but a second glance at the milk-and-dirt encrusted can makes him think the better of it. No one deserves this.

The customers in line press up against the wall to avoid Stiles, walking backwards toward the door, and the lumbering behemoth he’s dragging behind him. He takes the curve toward the door a little too fast and curses as the garbage can wobbles threateningly -- it must be top heavy _again_.

“Grounds at the bottom, Greenberg,” he mumbles to himself, re-balancing the can, and reaches for the cafe doors -- but, miraculously, they’re already open.

“Oh wow, thank you,” Stiles says to the tattooed, airpodded last customer in line, who’s propping one of the doors with her foot. She nods at him without looking up from her phone, and he swings out into the sidewalk to thank --

Small dark roast, no room, née Derek. He’s holding the other door for Stiles, and out here, he’s no longer backlit by the stupid blinding morning sun. And if he was gorgeous before, he’s jaw-dropping from this side of the counter. This close, Stiles can tell Derek just the slightest bit taller than he is and his eyes aren’t so much green as they are a whole mix of colors -- maybe hazel, technically, but that doesn’t really convey how fucking pretty they are. He’s wearing a leather jacket, and it looks good -- like, really, _really_ good on him.

“Headed out, or...?” Derek raises his eyebrows, and Stiles realizes he’s been standing in the open doorway, staring, for far longer than is remotely socially acceptable. Even Airpods has noticed and is starting to look a little irritated as the line moves along without her.

“Yeah! Yeah, sorry. Thank you. You just -- surprised me,” Stiles manages to say, which while embarrassing, is nowhere near as embarrassing as the whole truth. He yanks the trashcan over the threshold and flees down the street to the trash compactor around the back of the building.

He fucking hates the trash compactor. They share it with a Thai restaurant, a taproom, and an upscale Mexican restaurant that serves flights of Mezcal. The compactor looks like a medieval torture contraption and smells like warm beer and old limes and rotting lettuce and worst of all, the coffee shop’s own contribution: rank, gut-churning spoiled milk.

Grimacing, he flips back the lid of the overstuffed can, and grabs a bag off the top, rolling it over his shoulder to gain enough momentum to clear the five-foot side of the dumpster. It’s warm and heavy, filled with a morning’s worth of bulk-batch waterlogged coffee grounds.

Maybe, he thinks as he heaves the bag into the compactor, he can get back in time to see Derek. The bag hits the weird spiked compactor arm and breaks open, sending grounds and paper towels showering into the dumpster.

He goes in for another bag, warming to the idea. Derek’s kind of the bright spot of every shift. Getting back in time might make this whole godforsaken shitshow of a morning worthwhile. He hauls a few more bags back, sending them flying into the dumpster. Maybe, if he’s lucky, he can get Derek to raise an eyebrow, or even roll his eyes, just a little, at one of Stiles’s endless repertoire of crowd-pleasing coffee shop puns.

Yes. That’s it. This is going to be the fastest trash run of his whole career.

Stiles excavates the rest of the bags in short order, holding his breath as he reaches deeper into the trash can’s fetid cavern, until there’s just one bag left.

Greenberg’s been fucking up orders all morning, so the line’s moving slow. He can do this. He’s gonna waltz right behind that counter, wash his hands and throw on his apron, and be ready to harass Derek before he even gets close to the register.

He grabs the last bag, full of last night’s trash from the condiment bar -- used cups and napkins and sugar packets, splintered wooden stir sticks, submerged in a nasty stew of dregs and the coffee customers mindlessly pour off into the trash. He hauls the bag over his shoulder and winds up to lob it into the compactor -- but no, the weight’s all wrong, something’s off, but it’s too late. Stiles is already flinging the bag into the pile, too far into the motion to stop, but the bag has sprung a leak, and a brown stream of coffee and milk and sugar syrup bursts forth from its belly to splatter across the front of Stiles’s regulation black polo, down one leg of his Target utility pants, soaking his sock.

“Fuck,” Stiles says feelingly. “Fucking motherfucker fucking fuck.”

He decides to take his time heading back to the store.

————

He starts working on his best material early the next week. He’s been in this job for nearly two years -- since halfway through his junior year at Berkeley and looking to subsidize his unpaid spring semester internship. In that time, he’s heard every single coffee related pun. Unfortunately, Derek appears to have had his sense of humor surgically removed. He’s lucky he’s hot enough to make up for it.

After striking out with some of his most bulletproof material (A man goes to see his doctor. “Doc, he says, “you gotta help me out. Every time I drink coffee, I get a stabbing pain in my left eye. So the doctor says, “Well, have you tried taking the spoon out first?”), Stiles regroups and tries a different approach. Later that week, he engineers a conversation spent painstakingly deploying a truly genius series of increasingly blatant coffee puns (stir up some trouble, rise and grind, mug life) culminating in “I think about you a latte” and a cheeky wink. Derek just stares at him blankly, clutching his coffee in one hand, before beating a hasty retreat. It had been brutal -- Derek had been wearing glasses that day, and Stiles had gone home and screamed into his pillow over how insanely hot he’d been, then made himself get up and change out of his work clothes before the spoiled milk smell could contaminate his bed.

Stiles pulls himself together and goes back to the drawing board. He’s still devising his next comedic conversational gambit when, in the lull before the morning rush, Derek turns to him after collecting his coffee.

“Sorry,” Derek says, clearing his throat lightly. Then, with impeccably deadpan delivery that sends chills down Stiles’s spine: “Affogato your name. Remind me?”

“Wha--” Stiles says intelligently. He recovers the fumble. Kind of. “Stiles. I’m Stiles.”

“Thanks, Stiles.” And then Derek gives him the most self-satisfied smile Stiles has ever seen, and holy shit, does he want to find out all the ways he can get that look on Derek’s face. “See you around.” He doesn’t wait for a response. It’s a blessing, really, because Stiles has literally nothing to say, every thought preoccupied by just how much he likes this dude, and how badly he wants to put his mouth on Derek’s and kiss that smug look right off his face.

“Well played,” Boyd says, sighing, and Stiles doesn’t really have an argument to counter that. He’s too busy watching Derek walk away.

————

Stiles usually loves his Friday shift, but today he’s in a mood. He slept through his alarm and had to sprint to catch the bus. Greenberg’s doing a shitty job writing cups again, and a couple of people have gotten pissed at Stiles already, which is stupidly unfair. Boyd’s been unsympathetic, Finstock’s distracted, and Stiles is determined to take his ire out on somebody. He’s been trying to needle Greenberg all morning, but he’s too stupid to figure out that Stiles is trying to piss him off, which is wholly unsatisfying.

But now, Derek’s here, looking gorgeous and ordering another small dark roast with no room so he can run out the door before Stiles gets a chance to flirt with him. It’s annoying.

“Derek,” Stiles says cordially. “Do you always hate fun?”

“What? Me?” Derek looks taken aback, clutching his coffee against his chest. “Do I what?”

“Yes, you.” Stile sighs. “A small dark roast with no room is literally the most joyless thing you could possibly order. I’m just wondering if you’re one of those people who don’t know how to enjoy life.”

“I like dark roast. And I like my coffee black,” Derek says, frowning. “And isn’t tea the most joyless thing on the menu? It’s just hot twig water.”

“You… are not wrong. But, back to my point. Don’t you ever branch out? Try new things? You must have ordered something different at least once in your life,” Stiles drawls. He raises an eyebrow. “Or maybe you haven’t.”

“Of course I have.” Derek rolls his eyes. “When I’m at really good coffee shops, sometimes I get cappuccino.”

“ _Excuse me_. I make an excellent cappuccino,” Stiles says.

“I’m sure you do.” Derek raises his eyebrows, vaguely amused, and it only serves to piss Stiles off more.

“Don’t doubt me, dude. I’m the cappuccino master,” Stiles insists.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Derek says as he collects his drink and as he turns to go: “Don’t call me dude.” Little does he know: Stiles refuses to be proven wrong.

So that Monday, ten minutes before seven o’clock rolls around and right before the rush hits, Stiles meticulously prepares to make the best cappuccino of his life. Every training, every shift, has led up to this moment, he tells himself, sticking a pitcher of whole milk in the freezer, calibrating the dairy thermometer, checking the burr grinder.

“You okay there, Stiles?” Boyd asks. “You seem a little… intense this morning.”

“I’m good,” Stiles brushes him off, wiping down and taring the scale. He measures out exactly 15 grams of a dark, chocolate-y, limited edition bean they’ve been holding onto for tasting. “Just focused.”

“Okay then,” Boyd says, and finds something to do far, far away from Stiles.

Five minutes later, Derek slips to the back of the line, and Stiles whips out his last two vanilla lattes before turning his attention to his masterpiece.

He finishes just as Derek hands his cash over to Greenberg and beckons him over. “Derek,” he says. “Derek! Come here. I want to show you something.”

“What?” Derek looks absolutely baffled but does as he’s told, meeting Stiles down at the handoff counter.

“Here,” he says, setting a white ceramic cup on its saucer -- perfectly warm to the touch, he notes, gloating -- and slides it across the counter.

“What’s this?” Derek frowns, still confused, and god help Stiles -- it’s adorable.

“It’s a cappuccino,” Stiles says. He can see the moment Derek gets it, his gaze bouncing between the drink and Stiles and back again, to perfect, thick foam and a swoopy unmistakeable heart. “You should try it.”

“You made -- fine,” Derek says, shaking his head. “I didn’t mean -- fine.” He picks up the cup and takes a long slow sip, eyes on Stiles. He can’t look away, even as Derek sets the cup down and raises a questioning eyebrow, a smear of foam at the corner of his lips.

“You’ve got a little --” Stiles gestures, and watches helplessly as Derek licks it off, quick and utterly gut-wrenching. Stiles wants to kiss him, wants to die, really wishes he were on the other side of the counter and that it wouldn’t be so awkward if this didn’t work out.

“It’s good,” Derek says, a slow, dazzling grin breaking over his face, and if Stiles thought he might die before, well, he had no fucking clue this was coming to him. “I-- thanks. For making it for me.”

“You’re welcome,” Stiles says, rapt. “I--”

“Stiles,” Boyd says, suddenly at his elbow. “What _happened_?”

“Huh?” Stiles asks, but as he turns he knows immediately what Boyd’s talking about -- there are at least a dozen untouched cups at the other end of the bar, and just as many customers standing beyond Derek, watching with various degrees of amusement and impatience.

“Sorry,” Derek says, and lord, he’s blushing, “I didn’t mean to keep you. I’ll see you.”

“No, wait,” Stiles says forlornly, but Derek’s already hightailing it out of the store. Stiles watches him go before he ducks down to the dairy reach-in. Derek’s blush went all the way to the back of his neck, and that man will be the death of Stiles, make no mistake -- though, at this rate, Boyd might get to him first.

————

The next two mornings are complete and utter shitshows, thanks to whatever wild dance troupe has taken over the convention center down the block, and Stiles hardly has a moment to exchange grins with Derk from across the room before yet another timer beeps and he’s back to shoving sandwiches into the warming oven four at a time. Thursday, Derek is in a foul mood, frowning and tense, talking on his phone the whole time he’s waiting in line and even as he’s paying. He barely spares Stiles a glance, just a brief nod in response to Stiles’s hesitant wave, before he’s on his way out the door. Friday he doesn’t come in at all, and Stiles tries not to pout at the end of his shift -- he’s finally free, he’s at the farmer’s market, there’s kettle corn. Still, there’s a lingering disappointment he can’t shake, thinking of Derek grinning at him over the counter, and he skips buying sunflowers on his way home.

Monday comes around and he’s back on closing shift now that Isaac has returned from his month-long scatological adventure in the woods. That afternoon, he waltzes into the store -- well-rested, for a change -- and there’s Scott and Erica behind the counter, washing hands and counting over, respectively.

“Stiles! Bro, I missed you so much!” Scott beams.

“Been a minute,” Erica says, raising an eyebrow and shuffling the cash into a neat pile. “Get your apron on and hop on bar. Hopefully you won’t be completely useless after a month away.”

“Good to see you, too,” he huffs, but he really, really means it.

————

Things Stiles loves about closing shift: Scotty, sleeping in, trading a large skinny vanilla latte to the waitress from the Thai place around the corner for fresh rolls for dinner. Friendly Stanley, who is at least as weird as Weird Stanley but also brings them Popeye’s and char siu bao when the mood strikes him. Erica when she’s not being terrifying -- so maybe forty percent of the time. The long list of tasks they’re expected to complete while working through the evening rush clicks with something in his weirdly wired brain and after two years he can whip through the entire duty roster every shift, no matter how many people show up for BOGO Tuesdays. Sleeping in. The satisfaction of turning off the lights and setting the alarm, piling out the door and locking it behind them, knowing everything is in its place for the morning. Trading the day’s untouched last batch of high-octane cold brew for fancy imported beers from Allison at the taproom next door and exchanging eyerolls with Erica while Scott waxes poetic about her hair and her smile. Sleeping in.

Things Stiles hates about closing shift: the complete and total absence of Derek.

————

As it turns out, complete and total absence is a gross exaggeration of the situation. Stiles continues to see Derek nearly every day, in a manner of speaking.

The first time it happens, he’s scrubbing spilled raspberry syrup from under the espresso machine -- an unpleasant and perilous task, between the stubborn mess and the many, many sharp edges and heating elements hovering just above the scant three inches of clearance he has to fit his hand under the giant machine. He’s already shredded his knuckles twice by the time Erica comes up behind him, expertly drying an unwieldy blender cover fresh from the dishwasher.

“Hey Stiles, isn’t that the dude you’re stalking?” she asks, and Stiles shoots up from where he’s trying to melt a particular stubborn patch of syrup with water that’s just shy of scalding.

“I am not stalking him,” Stiles says reflexively, but he doesn’t take his eyes off Derek until he disappears from view. “I just think he’s smoking hot. And funny. And I want to have his buck-toothed babies. Or at least spend a lot of time trying to make them.”

“Mmmhm.” Erica nods, and right: point taken. After that, though, she and Scott give him a heads up when Derek comes by -- nearly six each day, probably on his commute home, and he never once stops for coffee or even pauses to look through the windows of the store. It gets to the point where they all stop to stare, if they aren’t too busy, and proceed to spend the next fifteen minutes mercilessly mocking Stiles for his big, stupid, terminally embarrassing crush.

Finstock puts in another demented restock order and on Thursday, they end up with 15 limited edition French presses for retail but run out of small and medium cup lids. Heather works at the uptown store and sighs when Stiles calls, but shows up like she always does -- he and Heather are ride or die, womb to tomb, forever best friends. They’re basically siblings, except for the one disastrous, mortifying time they hooked up in their freshman year of college, home for the holidays, bored, drunk, and horny.

If they’re still friends after that, nothing’s ever going to ruin what they’ve got going. Heather even got him this job, via personal reference and a bizarre phone interview with Finstock.

“Again, Stiles?” She whirls through the door and heads to the hand-off counter, tossing an armful of cup lids towards him.

He shrugs and breaks into one of the sleeves, starts restocking the bar. “Don’t ask me. I have no clue what he’s thinking.”

“I’m pretty sure even he has no clue what he’s thinking.” She rests her elbows on the counter and watches him, heaving a sigh. “I have to go back uptown but I don’t wanna.”

“Well, you could say--”

“Stilinski,” Erica interrupts sharply. “Two o’clock.”

Stiles’s head shoots up, and there he is, just like Erica said. Derek is walking down the sidewalk on his way back from the train, headphones in, sunglasses on, a slight scowl on his face. He’s still hot as fuck, just like he was yesterday, and still totally unattainable. Dammit.

“Oh honey,” Heather says sympathetically, shaking her head. “Really?”

“You have no idea,” Stiles whines, letting his head fall forward to hit the espresso hopper with a dull, rattling _thunk_. “I know, okay? I know.”

“Stiles is in love!” Scott shouts unhelpfully from where he’s breaking down the pastry case.

“Stiles, that’s disgusting,” Erica says. “Now you have to sanitize the machine all over again.”

Heather grimaces. “Ew. I’ve got to go, but I want you to know: that was pathetic. I’ll call you.”

“Fine,” Stiles groans, and goes to find a container big enough for five pounds of beans.

————

“Hey princess.” Erica looks up from entering the inventory count as he kicks open the door to the back room and swings his bag off his shoulder. “There’s a note for you in the shift log.”

“Thanks,” he says, stripping off his hoodie and kicking off his chucks. “Who wants to swap this time?”

This time, Erica doesn’t look away from the computer, but Stiles can still see her sly grin. “You should probably read this one yourself.”

“Fine,” he grumbles, but they both know his curiosity’s piqued. He heads back onto the floor and grabs the journal from its cubby next to the registers, flipping through weeks of coffee stained pages to the entry for today.

Beneath Boyd’s warning that they didn’t have time for a full trash run and a note that they’re low on vanilla syrup and hand towels but for some reason there were five extra bottles of gross toxic oven cleaner in this week’s order, scrawled in Isaac’s loopy, botanist’s hand:

_Tell Stiles small dark roast no room asked about him this morning._

Stiles doesn’t stop grinning his entire shift, even when Erica throws a roll of toilet paper at his head and sends him to clean bathrooms, even when the sink is clogged with wadded up paper towels, even when someone shit all over the back of the toilet, again.

————

As fate would have it, Stiles ends up covering a morning shift the very next week. This time, Greenberg’s out sick, thank god, and Isaac’s on register. It’s an excellent shift -- none of the cups are mismarked, and Stiles has to work half as hard as he usually does during the rush, since he’s not remaking every other drink.

Still, it’s a busy morning -- a national Rubik’s cube competition this time, if the tee-shirts are to be believed -- and halfway through, Stiles realizes he’s almost out of mocha. In a spare quiet moment, he runs to the back and grabs the whisk and the giant pitcher they use to mix up the powder, adding water and mixing in his patented, no-lumps, no-splash method between drinks.

He pours the chocolate into a storage tub and sets it to the side, and when he looks up, there’s Derek -- at the end of the line, looking down at his phone. Stiles makes the next three drinks on autopilot, pouring and steaming and pulling shots and looking up at Derek at every step, until he pops the lid and sleeve onto yet another skinny vanilla latte and looks up to find Derek looking right back at him, lips quirked in a small smile, and Stiles swears his heart does a dumb little skip-hop thing.

“Hey,” he says, when Derek gets closer -- like they haven’t been sneaking glances at each other this entire time.

“Hey,” Derek says back, and Stiles can see Isaac rolling his eyes out of the corner of his eye but he couldn’t possibly begin to give a shit.

“Long time, no see,” Stiles says lightly, reaching blindly for the soy milk and adding chai to a fresh cup, so the whole espresso bar smells like cinnamon and clove.

“Yeah,” Derek says. “I was wondering where you’d gone.”

“Around,” Stiles shrugs a little. He can be chill. He can be flirtatious and cool. Smooth. “I was wondering,” he says, reaching for a spoon, “if maybe you -- oh, shit.”

His hand collides with something heavy and plastic, and he tries to pull it back in time, but it’s too late -- the mocha tub goes over, two gallons of thick chocolate syrup oozing out over the counter like a lava flow, a disastrous wave toppling empty to-go cups, dripping onto the reach-in, running down the side of his apron to puddle on the mat and filter through to the floor beneath. He watches with horror as the door to the back room slams open and Finstock comes stomping through, right into the pool of syrup that’s seeped out from under the mat, and down he goes, feet flying up in the air.

“Stilinski,” Finstock hisses, the breath knocked out of him, but Stiles can tell he’s gearing up for more.

“Stiles!” Boyd shouts from over by the coffee brewers. He’s smart not to come any closer. “What the hell?”

“I--- should go,” Derek says quickly. He grabs his coffee and hurtles toward the door, and Stiles doesn’t say anything, just watches him leave. It takes over an hour, three buckets of mop water, and more towels than Stiles can count to clean up the mess. At the end of it all he goes home smelling like shitty chocolate and dirty floor water, dateless and hopeless.

————

Stiles is still nursing his wounded pride and crushed expectations on Thursday, back on the bar for the closing shift. Scott has decided he’s on a one-man mission to cheer Stiles up by the end of the night.

“Stiles, come on,” Scott says. “It wasn’t that bad. You didn’t spill it on him or anything. And like, any one of us could have done that.”

“I wouldn’t,” Erica scoffs, examining her cuticles.

“Erica wouldn’t,” Stiles says, morose, swabbing the clean counter with a sanitizer towel. “You should have seen his face, Scott. It was definitely that bad.”

“Stiles,” Scott frowns. “Listen to me. If this guy cares that much about some stupid mocha syrup, then he’s not worth your time. And you clearly think he is, so I--”

“It’s not about the syrup, dude. It’s about my complete inability to act like a normal human being around him. I’m a total mess.” Stiles sighs and considers putting his head down on the cool steel counter, but he knows Erica will just make him clean it again. He rests on his elbows and drops his head into his hands, the next best thing.

“Yeah, you are,” Erica agrees.

“No,” Scott says. “ _No_. You are not a total mess, and I promise you this guy -- oh wow. Hey. Yeah, I am definitely, one hundred percent sure that this guy doesn’t think so.”

“Holy shit. Stiles,” Erica hisses. “Get up. Get up!”

“What?” Stiles sighs again and reluctantly obeys, pushing up from the counter. “What is it?”

“Hey,” says Derek. He’s standing there by the register in that same cursed leather jacket, headphones dangling from one hand. “Someone told me this place makes a pretty good cappuccino.”

“I have it on good authority they were lying,” Stiles says, trying to keep his voice even, like the sight of Derek doesn’t send Stiles’s pulse racing.

“I think I can be the judge of that,” Derek says dryly. “Think you could make one for me?”

“I can definitely do that.” Stiles starts pouring the milk, careful not to spill a single drop. Derek moves to pay, but Erica waves him away.

“This one’s on us,” she says and, bless her, makes herself scarce and drags Scott along with her.

Derek watches Stiles measure and grind in silence. Stiles doesn’t know what he should say -- everything is awkward and stange and hopeful, and he doesn’t want to fuck up the moment, or the stupid cappuccino. It’s little comfort that Derek doesn’t seem to know what to say either.

“I’m surprised you came back, after what happened last time,” Stiles says. He doesn’t look up from the milk swirling in the pitcher. “That was pretty spectacular.”

“Sorry I ran out, but it looked like you had your hands full. I actually… I was wondering.” Derek clears his throat, and Stiles steals a glance at him. He’s flushing a little, and Stiles fights back a dopey grin. “Isaac told me I should come by in the afternoon to talk to you, but. This is your workplace. And I know it’s literally your job to be nice to me. But I thought, maybe.” Derek shrugs. “It’s a little stupid, now that I’m trying to say it.”

Something in Stiles warms as he listens to Derek, all six feet of him, styled hair and broad shoulders and those fucking eyes, stumbling over his words, like maybe -- like maybe he has a big, stupid, terminally embarrassing crush, too.

“Can I tell you a story?” Stiles asks abruptly. Derek looks a little confused, but he nods gamely. “Okay. Great. So, one of my coworkers got a chance to do a really important internship and I ended up covering his morning shift for a whole month, and I hated it.” Derek frowns, but Stiles carries on. There’s a part of him that just has to get this out there. “I don’t like waking up early, and there’s this one guy who’s just stunningly incompetent--”

“Greenberg,” Derek interjects, nodding.

“Yes! Greenberg. His job really isn’t that difficult. You would think he’d -- anyway,” Stiles shakes his head, refocusing. “So I hate the morning shift. But there was one thing I really, really didn’t hate about it. There was this one customer.” Feeling inexplicably brave, he looks up to meet Derek’s eyes, and what he sees there gives him the courage to keep going. “And he was honestly the best part of my morning. I looked forward to him coming in every day -- he was smart, and funny, and just a total smokeshow.”

Stiles grins.

“But every time I tried to talk to him, or ask him out, something dumb happened -- I would end up with garbage juice all over my pants, or we’d get too busy, or I’d spill two gallons of chocolate syrup everywhere. It kind of felt like it wasn’t meant to be after I ended up back on closing shift.” Stiles shrugs, and pours the milk -- hearts again, because why the fuck not -- he’s laid it all out there, no going back now. “And then he came to find me.” Stiles clears his throat. “I’m kind of hoping we’re going to go on a date after.”

“So there’s that.” He pushes the cappuccino across the counter, but Derek doesn’t look at it -- he’s too busy staring at Stiles, cheeks stained by a faint flush. Stiles swallows, too fucking loud and obvious, because he really wants to kiss Derek, to rest his fingers on Derek’s cheek and see how warm it is, let his hand drift down to feel his stubble.

“You’re pretty good at telling stories,” Derek finally says, voice a little hoarse. He clears his throat and meets Stiles’ gaze head-on. “Do you want to get dinner this weekend, and maybe tell me some more of them?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, a little breathlessly because holy shit, there it is. He’s trying to hold back his big stupid grin, but can tell he’s failing because Derek’s smiling right back. “I’d like that. I’m working tomorrow, so… how about Saturday?”

“Saturday,” Derek nods, and they just stand there for a long moment, just grinning like idiots. ”I should go. Or, I have to go,” he amends. “I’m meeting my sister for dinner. But I’m going to call you. And I’ll see you on Saturday?”

“Saturday,” Stiles says, and he at least has the presence of mind to scrawl his number on a cup sleeve and shove it at Derek, who accepts it gracelessly. He’s trying to keep his cool, but it’s impossible. Derek is fucking adorable and a giant nerd and they’re going on a date on Saturday night. Stiles is going to climb him like a fucking tree.

“Saturday,” Derek repeats and nods. “Okay. Great. I’ll see you?”

“Yeah, you’ll see me,” Stiles says and hand to god, Derek flushes, all the way to the tips of his ears this time, and Stiles could die. Just lay down on the nasty coffee-crusted ergonomic mat and expire.

“Yeah,” Derek says one more time, and ducks his head, clutching his to-go cup as he heads for the door. He looks back twice, and Stiles catches him both times, gives him a little wave as he finally makes it out the door.

“Stiles.” Erica is suddenly at his shoulder -- or maybe not suddenly; he honestly has no idea what’s happened in the past ten minutes other than Derek’s ridiculous bunny-toothed smile, and the fact that he has an honest-to-god, genuine date this weekend with the hottest man he’s ever seen. “It’s time for your ten.”

“But I just took my lunch,” he says, distracted and confused.

“Stiles,” Erica sighs, yanking on his apron ties. “ _Go_. Take your ten, you idiot.”

“Oh. Yeah, okay. Yeah--” Stiles tries to yank the apron over his head and gets caught, struggling with his collar.

“Tick tock, Stilinksi.” Erica pulls and the apron is free, his collar askew and his hair a wild mess. “Go.”

“Yeah, thanks. Thanks!” He’s already halfway out the door and on the sidewalk. Derek’s standing on the corner only two blocks away, waiting to cross, and Stiles starts toward him.

“Hey,” he shouts. “Derek! Hey.”

Derek turns, and Stiles sprints right through the red light -- he looks both ways; it’s totally fine -- and dodges a succession of strollers and evening dog walkers to meet Derek midway down the block.

“Stiles,” Derek says warily, and Stiles realizes this is the closest they’ve ever been to each other. He wants to reach out and touch Derek -- maybe cup his jaw, rest a hand on his waist -- but he holds back. “Is everything --”

“Fine,” Stiles interrupts, waving Derek away. “Everything’s fine, I just.” He huffs out a sigh. No steps backward. “I forgot something.”

“Yeah?” Derek asks, and Stiles can’t be sure, but he thinks that’s a hint of a smile at the corners of his eyes, and he moves a little closer.

“Yeah,” Stiles breathes. “I wanted to… Can I--”

Derek doesn’t answer, just nods as closes the space between them, and then Derek’s hand is the one cupping Stiles’s jaw, tilting his head just so, and they’re kissing -- in the middle of the street, he thinks, in front of god and the old ladies pulling giant carts of full of groceries behind them and the bus full of people and everyone, and then Stiles forgets how to think at all. Derek’s mouth is soft against his, moving so gently, and then not at all gently -- intense and slow, Derek’s stubble scraping against his skin, their lips barely parted. It’s chaste, as far as kisses go, but carries the expectation of so much more that it leaves Stiles breathing too fast, weak in the knees as he groans into Derek’s mouth.

He can’t quite stop himself from the tiny, bereft noise that escapes him when Derek pulls away. Derek looks just as wrecked as he does, lips pink and parted, expression dazed. Stiles just wants to get him alone -- to hell with work, with dinner, with everything.

“So,” Stiles says finally, licking his lips, a rush of heat lighting up his chest when he catches Derek watching. “Saturday.”

“Please,” Derek says. " _Yes_. I’ll text you.”

“Yes,” Stiles nods emphatically. “Now go. You’re going to be late for dinner.”

“Probably. But it’s absolutely your fault.”

Stiles shrugs. “Yeah, well. No regrets.”

“None. Well, maybe one.” Derek hesitates, raising an eyebrow. “That mug life pun was pretty terrible.” And Stiles kisses him -- once to shut him up, and then again, like a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can also find me on [tumblr](https://whateverrrrwhatever.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/whateverrrrisay).
> 
> Let me know if you liked the fic!


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